By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 6:22pm
In a victory for free speech on the Internet, social network giant Facebook last week corrected a mistake that had the unfortunate consequence of blocking political speech and affirmed its commitment to serving as a neutral platform for political advocacy.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:40pm
Sigh. As if we don’t have enough divisiveness in this country, a familiar subset of Congressional Republicans are trotting out yet another discriminatory bill papered over with hollow rhetoric about “unity,” “commonality” and shared national vision, which will be the subject of a hearing in the House Constitution Subcommittee today. (Here’s the ACLU’s statement, which focuses mainly on the civil rights and immigration issues in the bill; I’m just covering the First Amendment in this post.)
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:46pm
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a revamped version of the so-called Stolen Valor Act. The revamp responded to a Supreme Court decision that declared an earlier version of the legislation—which made it a crime to falsely claim to have a military medal—unconstitutional. Sponsors of that bill failed to learn the lesson of that decision (which was written, not incidentally, by the radical leftist Justice Anthony Kennedy, and joined by card-carrying ACLU member, Chief Justice Roberts). If the original Stolen Valor Act were a seven on the scale of unconstitutionality, the revamped version in the House went to 11. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the initial H.R. 1775 was replaced by a far preferable version introduced by Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR).
By Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts at 10:27am
You know we are in the silly season of summer when Boston Mayor Thomas Menino fires up the old bully pulpit to roast his political enemies and fire up his base.
When the Occupy Wall Street movement ignited last fall, there was no shortage of disturbing press reports about NYPD misconduct toward the demonstrators. We've all read stories about the NYPD’s abuses—the eviction of hundreds of protesters from Zuccotti Park, the mass arrest of 700 people on the Brooklyn Bridge, the pepper-spraying of peaceful protesters.
Why is the FBI spying on Occupy protesters? The ACLU-NC is determined to find out.
The ACLU of Northern California and San Francisco Bay Guardian today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to find out whether and to what extent the feds have been spying on members of the Occupy movement. Although the right to protest goes to the heart of our democracy, and the FBI exists to keep us safe, the FBI has a perverse history of interpreting its mission to mean that it can spy on political activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr.
Last fall, the grassroots protest movement Occupy Wall Street - or simply "Occupy" - swept the nation. Originating in New York, prominent Occupy movements sprung up all overNorthernCalifornia. But the law enforcement response was swift and brutal, as police showered protesters with exploding projectiles, batons, and pepper spray. (The ACLU-NC is currently suing UC Davis over its pepper spraying of peaceful student protesters, and is also partnering with the National Lawyers Guild in suing the City of Oakland over the violent crackdown on Occupy Oakland.)
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:29pm
“Lying was his habit.”
That’s the first line from Justice Kennedy’s plurality opinion in United States v. Alvarez, last month’s Supreme Court decision striking down the “Stolen Valor Act,” which made it a federal crime to lie about having been awarded a military decoration.
